A Gander ole Day!

Jeff and I had a good morning on the 30th of September.......... Jeff had been out the previous evening and set out the decoys....... and took 5 teal! But the morning hunt brought some excitement! The ducks weren't flying like they were on the opener, but with Jeff's two goose decoys and his excellent job of calling we were able to persuade four Canadians to the decoys! The first two came in over the corn and locked in on the decoys, we actually waited for the first goose to land so the 2nd could get into range before we opened fire! The final bag was the four Geese, a hen bufflehead, and a drake and hen wood duck........ If you ask Jeff we had some good luck too!

South Dakota 2008 Duck Opener

South Dakota Duck opener........ Mark and I enjoyed a successful limit out opener this year. The slew by Wentworth proved a good place to be yet again! Mark made it out and had the decoys set up by 6:50, I on the other hand overslept and didn't make it until 7:35, Mark had already slayed 4 by that time...... However Ducks kept flying in and Mark and I were able to fill our limit. Had another hunter been there whose name I will not say, (lakefly) we most likely would have had 15 ducks! Mark did a good job at retrieving said ducks! Ducks shot were mallards, wood ducks, pintail, red head, canvasback, and the coveted teal! A nice mixed bag! Weather was cloudy and quite foggy until about 9:00 when it cleared off, ducks were mostly flying in pairs, but did have a fewer bigger groups fly by as Mark was clearing off the decoys! Also saw a good number of Canadian Geese flyin by just out of range!

Would you shoot it?

Okay, we got this picture by the deer stand we put up last week. If you had never shot a buck before and saw this one on the first day, would you shoot it or wait for something better??

I don't know for sure, but I think I'd wait and see if something better came along. Am I being too greedy?

South Dakota Doves

Well guys, looks like we need to start a new tradition. Dove hunting in SD! Orlan, Mark and I were expertly guided to a dove hot spot by Adam VanZanten on Wednesday night. Things started a little slowly, but really picked up around 7:00pm.

We shot fairly well (except for Mark, but that's no news flash) and got 21 doves. Not bad for it only being about 65 degrees or so. Babe and Mandy did a great job retrieving for us, even though Mandy developed a taste for the birds as the night went on.

The best part of the hunt was when Orlan decided to take all the doves home and clean them for us. A swallow did give his life for the hunt early on. You can guess who did the honors on that one. And Mark managed to flock shoot some blackbirds. Orlan didn't want to clean any of those. Mandy wouldn't even eat those.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know how hunting was up here in South Dakota. We plan on going again some night next week.

Doves 08

Could defintely have used some shooters this year..shots fired to kill ratio i would say ran about 18 to one for most of th egents and young boys in this photo. I didnt do that bad but only fired my weapon baout 1/10 as much as most here LOL.